Description

Mimosa pudica, the touch-me-not or sensitive plant, is a sprawling, prickly annual or short-lived perennial herb of the family Fabaceae, native to Central and South America and now pantropically naturalised across the Indian subcontinent, Southeast Asia, tropical Africa, and Pacific islands. The plant is celebrated for its rapid leaf-folding response to mechanical stimulation — a phenomenon studied by early botanists and later by Jagadish Chandra Bose. In Ayurveda, the plant is known as Lajjalu and is documented in the Charaka Samhita and Sushruta Samhita for preparations associated with urinary tract conditions, skin disorders, and nervous system applications. The small, flat, oval seeds are traded separately in the Indian herbal market for their mucilaginous seed coat and documented ethnobotanical uses.